The Hours
sixteen.
There are some things you have to know, Merope. The first one is this: you are a Gaunt, a pure and untainted descendent of the great Salazar Slytherin. That blood inside your veins -- there is nothing more precious, do you understand? (Yes, Papa.)
fifteen.
She asks Papa about Slytherin many times, but the stories are always the same. He was a great wizard, undoubtedly the greatest that ever lived. You are his descendant. He fought valiantly against the pervading Muggle influences of his time and tirelessly contributed to the foundation of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You are his descendant. He defended Hogwarts against those who would betray its core principles. You are his descendent. He is revered today by many throughout the Wizarding world. You are his descendent.
(Quietly, she asks him why they are not equally revered by the Wizarding world, if it is their veins that hold his precious blood, and he hits her until her vision is washed in red and he is yelling in her ear how could you ever be stupid enough to think that they would revere you my daughter?)
fourteen.
He makes her watch, sometimes, and sometimes, when she gives him a subtle shake of the head and mimes the chores that Papa has told her that she must do, he presses the wand to her chest and hisses. (He could kill her, she knows.) The air drifting through her throat slows, the skin tightens, and the chain binds.
So she watches. She watches him crouch upon the ground and the whole of his senses directed towards the forest. She watches him lick his lips as the rabbit bounds into the clearing and he wields his magic against it, advancing as the creature's limbs buckle and crack and its mouth forms into a silent plea but she can only watch. Then he pulls out his knife, rusted red but sharp. He kills the rabbit gently with its edge.
When Morfin tears the dead thing's still heart from its cage and squeezes the juices between his fingers, she does as she is taught (compelled) to do, and that is to smile as if congratulating her brother on a job well done.
thirteen.
The second: this locket belonged to Slytherin himself. Pure gold, you see? It is proof of our lineage and the most important possession we own. You are to wear it until you, too, sire children and give it to your youngest daughter when she is of age. (Yes, Papa.)
twelve.
Papa makes her scrub the floors until they are dirtier than before and he tells her it is for her own good. Papa makes her race through the woods with Morfin (she loses every race she has ever run) and he tells her it is for her own good. Papa makes her kneel before him, her rags discarded, and lashes her back until she mumbles against the floor and he tells her it is for her own good.
eleven.
Somehow, Slytherin's locket is never harmed. (She thinks it must be magic.)
ten.
In the kitchen, she slumps against the wall and holds Morfin's knife above her arm. (He will hurt her later for taking it.)
The thick crimson pools at the incision and she drops the knife and clutches her wrist, sighing. If it is Slytherin's blood they want so she retrieves the blade and it sings.
nine.
Papa does not love her and he does not pretend to love her. He should pretend to love her but then she does not know which one is worse.
eight.
The third: you are a girl, you are the youngest, you are ugly, you haven't a single sensible thought to your brain --
seven.
Dinner at the Gaunts' is never silent; Papa and Morfin speak too much and Merope is only interested in her greens. Wooden spoon in hand, she stumbles upon snippets of their conversation -- a good stout man you're growing up to be my boy (Morfin cackles, his eyes disappearing into a grin) and we'll find a good pure wife for you yet (but we're the only ones left, aren't we?) there is always a way my son always a way -- and the spoon clatters against the table when she notices that Papa is looking at her.
six.
It all weighs upon her like the gold of her locket upon her neck and the gold is like twisted iron. She has tried before but she cannot take it off.
five.
-- and you yourself are worth nothing.
(And she agreed, she agreed, why did she agree?).
four.
Then there are times she suddenly wakes and pauses --
(She is a Gaunt. She is Salazar Slytherin's descendant. Why is she hated? She cares for the locket as she is charged to do. Why is she never rewarded? She remembers some distant day when Papa told her that Slytherin lived over one thousand years ago. Was there ever any Gaunt treated as she is treated, or is this some perverse family tradition to be hung around the neck of the most unfortunate progeny?)
three.
When Merope realizes that there is something growing inside of her, she waits for Papa and Morfin to leave for an expedition into the forest. She pulls Papa's cauldron from the cupboard and brews a potion, stirring it slowly.
There is an indistinguishable lump amid the blood and sheets and stink, but she does not wait for it to stir before tossing the bundle into the fire, pain riddling her body as she stands.
two.
Now she understands. The carrier herself is expendable.
one.
-- and she wonders why the questions cannot always be so clear. There is something unsteady in her blood. Perhaps it is too old.
(zero.)
It is only when Merope is asleep that Merope becomes a girl like all other girls. She sleeps on the right side of the bed, curled towards the wall, hands clasped before her face and ankles crossed. From her, there is no sound and no movement but the occasional twitch. Inside, there are dreams, painted in uncertain blurs and muffled sighs, but when she awakes, she never remembers them; therefore, she assumes dreams are for the sleepworld alone. Despite her dirty clothes and crossed eyes, there is something sweetly normal about her during those eight unconscious hours of every day of every year of this life.
(When she awakes, everything is different.)